From Tussock Bay to the coast, the Irene sailed by way of a branch of Shark River.  The deep water of this river near the Gulf of Mexico was roughened by a high wind and the rising and falling of the skiff seemed to excite the alligator which for hours had been as quiet as if he were asleep or dead.  Slowly lifting his huge head over the side of the skiff he gave a lurch which strained the rope that held him and enough of the weight of the reptile was on the side of the skiff to capsize it.  The captain, who first heard the struggle and saw the upset of the skiff, shouted to Ned, who was below oiling the engine, to shut off the power.  Before the Irene lost her headway Ned was in the river with the alligator, resting on the bottom of the skiff which he rolled from over the reptile to save it from drowning.  Instantly the freed jaws of the alligator opened wide in his face and the boy threw himself backward in the water and swam swiftly away from his dangerous companion.  The rope had slipped from the head of the reptile, which now seized the gunwale of the boat and thrashed about until he had freed himself from the rope which bound him, after which he quickly disappeared.  Half an hour later Ned was pouring his grievances into the ear of his chum, who was resting in his bunk from the fatigue of the morning.

“Don’t you think, Dick, it was bad enough to be scared to death by a whopping old alligator that I thought was going to bite me in two, without being scolded by everybody on board for recklessness?  First there was Dad, and he uses pretty powerful language when he gets real earnest, then Captain Hull gave it to me like a Dutch uncle, and even Molly lectured me and squeezed out a few tears.  I told Dad it wasn’t half as bad as your jumping in the way of that panther, but he said that was altogether a different thing and had some sense in it.”

CHAPTER XXV

IN FLORIDA BAY

After the Irene had sailed twenty miles down the coast and was about opposite East Cape (Sable) Captain Hull asked for his orders.

“Isn’t Madeira Hammock on the coast, about thirty miles from here?” inquired Ned.

“Yes, but you will have to go seventy to get there.  You’ve got to go way round by the keys.”

“Isn’t there water enough for the Irene along the coast?”

“Isn’t enough to float the skiff.  You can go about ten miles.  After that there’s an inch of water and I reckon a mile of blue, soft, sticky mud.  I’ve been a few feet down in it and the farther I went the softer and stickier it got.”

“Suppose we go the ten miles you talk about what will we find?”

“Tarpon, sharks, porpoises, lots of fish, birds and enough sawfish to make a picket fence of their saws all around the coast.”

“That’s us, Captain,” said Ned.

And the Irene’s mud hook went to the bottom that night in eight feet of water off Joe Kemp’s Key.